Melinda: Bringer of Fear and Terror
by Anguirus111
Summary: To better understand Mindy, bane of Billy and Mandy's existence, you would have to start with her home life. A life filled with chaos, explosions, and ultimately, family. And that's only just the beginning...


A/N: This is really sort of a character study of Mindy surrounding her parentage. Feel free to flame the idea. Also, I may not have been the first person to have this idea. This story is probably also an AU. Review if so inclined, it's up to you.

_Mindy's home life was not normal_.

Endsville: "Have fun in loserville, loser!" shouted the female pint-sized red-head scourge of anyone and everyone who dared to not live up to her exacting standards-of which none existed-who was otherwise known as Mindy.

The target of her wrath-albeit with a poorly phrased taunt-was a similar pint-sized female, except this had blonde-hair curved upwards and a scowl that seemed to never quite go away…otherwise known as Mandy.

Although similar in some respects, the two were different in so many others. And it was those differences-at least the ones they perceived as differences-that had put them at odds for longer than anyone could remember. And this would likely continue to be so unto eternity.

Satisfied that she had done her part in making her fellow classmate's life as miserable as she could for one day, the young girl hefted her backpack upon her shoulders and began the walk home.

The fact that she lived nowhere near her nemesis or her clueless companion was of great relief to the red-head as she continued her trek. While one might suspect this was because Mindy had no desire to be near Mandy that was not the primary reason. Everyone has secrets and she was no exception. And some secrets had to always be kept hidden from prying eyes for fear of what would happen if revealed to the world.

_And if a girl who wore her heart on her sleeve had secrets, then they had to be awfully good ones…_

Fortunately for her, Mindy happened to live in a much more affluent neighborhood than most of her other schoolmates and so she had little to fear about accidentally running into one of them. Still, as she always did when she went home, Mindy gave the occasional side glance to be absolutely sure she didn't see anyone she knew or was being followed.

Satisfied she was in the clear, Mindy finally arrived at her home. The house she lived in wasn't completely extravagant, but it did have porcelain statues, a brick walkway, three car garage, and various other touches that set it apart from anyone who didn't live in her community. Walking up the pathway, she noted a couple new statues and couldn't help notice that the faces all featured mouths with a small gap tooth in them. Moving past them, Mindy fished around in her backpack for her house keys but slowly started to panic when she couldn't find them.

Thinking rapidly, Mindy realized she'd been in such a rush to head to school that morning that she'd accidentally left them behind on her nightstand. Immediately slapping her hand against her forehead, she silently cursed herself for being so stupid. Thinking rapidly, she debated whether or not she should take her chances trying to find an open window or see if she could get in through the back window. …But that would look instantly suspicious to anyone nearby.

Sighing heavily to herself, Mindy reached up and reluctantly rang the doorbell. Immediately recoiling her hand as if it had been bitten by a poisonous snake, she crossed her fingers, shut her eyes tight, and prayed desperately about the event which was about to occur as the door swung open.

"Oh, hello Mindy," said a warm voice before instantly turning to confusion. "What are you doing?"

Mindy opened her eyes and saw her mother looking down at her. Her mother had red hair similar to hers, same fair complexion; indeed looked in many ways like an older version of Mindy with the exception that she wore glasses on her face.

Letting out a giant breath of relief, Mindy lowered her hands and stepped inside her house.

"It's a Zen-thing, mom," she lied concerning her actions and then immediately realized the mistake of saying that.

"Zen?" asked her mother a little dismayed as she shut the door behind them and the two made their way into the kitchen. "Isn't that supposed to quiet your inner turmoil?"

"Something like that," said Mindy really knowing nothing about Zen. "Or else let you harness your inner craziness," she offered instead. That answer seemed to partly satisfy her mom as she let the subject go. And then moved onto a subject Mindy saw coming from a mile away.

"Well speaking of," her mother began with a malevolent gleam in her eye as her voice began to change from American suburbanite to British English, "how was school? Was it…CHAOTIC?!"

The young child covered her eyes as a brilliant flash filled the room. As the light subsided, Mindy lowered her hands and looked at where the other occupant of the room was standing. Rather than the previous description of her mother who was wearing a sweater and jeans…instead stood a blonde-haired gap toothed woman wearing a two piece toga outfit prominently displaying her midriff.

The new arrival was known as Eris, the Greek deity of chaos and destruction. She was vindictive, probably crazy, a nuclear bomb on two feet, and despite all these things was still…Mindy's mother.

_This was one third of the greatest secret Mindy has always been terrified of the world finding out_.

"It was a pretty ordinary day," Mindy confessed to Eris's disappointment.

"That's too bad," she pouted as she opened up the refrigerator and went rooting around in it. "I thought by now you would've been a chip of the old golden apple by burning down your school…or at least attempting to."

Mindy repressed an urge to groan at hearing at that.

"Maybe when I reach Junior High," she said, highly doubting that it would happen then either.

"Well here's hoping!" said her mother positively.

It is often said that children rarely understand their parents while still growing up. For Mindy this was definitely true. Although, it was compounded by the fact that she was a young human mortal trying to get through life alive and her mother was an immortal Greek deity with a penchant for blowing things up.

Plus there was the single inescapable fact that everything in her mother's life revolved in one way or another around chaos. Whenever Mindy came home from school, she always asked if her day had been chaotic or not. Or when she came back from a field trip, or from a long walk, or… In an attempt to make her mom happy, originally Mindy would talk about things she had done that had either disrupted the school day or at least her classmate's lives. But while her mother never said anything to the effect, over time Mindy felt that no matter what chaotic things she had done, they could never match up to her mother's expectations, which were coming from someone who could rip a hole in reality straight to the underworld at a moment's notice. And so Mindy slowly became and more and more disillusioned to the point of no longer even caring whenever the topic came out.

The only one stubbornly small glimmer of hope that Mindy couldn't fully shake was that her mother continued to ask. And that if she was asking that must mean she surely still cared, right? Mindy didn't know and was too afraid to ask and so she continued answering the question as honestly as she could.

"Are you hungry, dear?" asked Eris curious, looking out from the fridge. Mindy looked at a covered pot that was boiling on the stove.

"When will dinner be ready?" she asked. Eris looked at the pot thoughtfully and got up and pulled the lid off of it with her bare hands, not even noticing the heat. Instantly several tentacles shot out and began writhing around trying to grab a hold of anything and everything it could. Not even missing a beat, Eris grabbed a long wooden spoon and began smacking the tentacles while yelling at it thereby driving them back into the pot and then put the lid on thereby somehow sealing it in there.

"Probably not for a couple of more hours; baby krakens are a real delicacy but they're hard to kill," her mother admitted while finding nothing strange about that sentence. Bizarre foods were the norm for her household and so it was either get used to it or go without eating for awhile. All the same, while Mindy did try and eat what was served to her, she had little trouble maintaining her pint-sized figure.

"Here, why don't you have a tuna fish sandwich for now," Eris said after pulling out the ready made sandwich on a plate and putting it in front of her daughter. Mindy thanked her for the food and took a bite out of it. It tasted slightly off somehow, but not enough that she couldn't enjoy it and so she continued eating it. Eris meanwhile went to the kitchen sink and poured herself a glass of water while looking out the window.

"Ooh, looks like Mr. Muttenfudge is out watering his lawn," her mother said pleased. Across the road their neighbor had set up his sprinkler and was watching it spray his perfectly kept lawn. An evil smile crossed her mother's face as she stretched out her pointer finger and thumb in the facsimile of a gun. She then aimed at the sprinkler and jerked her hand back while making a noise as if firing off her weapon as a small glow came off her finger. The sprinkler immediately stopped working. Mr. Muttenfudge looked perplexed and was walking forward to examine the device when the head on it suddenly spun around and blasted him. The man then tried to cover his face and move out of the way, but the sprinkler somehow tracked his every movement and after a few moments of vainly trying to get out of the way, he finally retreated to the safety of his garage. The sprinkler then went back to normal as Eris laughed lightly at what had just happened.

It wasn't enough that her mother enjoyed hearing about chaos; she also had to be primary instigator of it as befitting her title. It wasn't that Eris felt she was being evil by delighting in making other people's lives miserable, she just genuinely felt that introducing a little chaos into other's lives was doing them a favor by breaking up the monotony of their boring daily existence.

That extended to her daughter's life as well. And sometimes it got overbearing at times. For example Mindy recalled how when mentioning there being a little Miss Scurvy Beauty Pageant at her school, she had been surprised how her mother had highly encouraged her to enter the contest. She had been even more surprised when her mother suggested goading her arch-nemesis Mandy to enter the contest as well. Mindy knew Mandy stood no chance in beating her and that her mother probably felt this was a good way to display her superiority.

Then her mother volunteered to be a judge in the contest and that had come as a complete shock to the young girl. One the one hand she felt ecstatic beyond belief that her mother was now showing an interest in her personal life and this would be a guaranteed vote in her favor. On the other hand, she was fearful of those who would use the knowledge that Eris was her parent against her to embarrassing ends. Billy and Mandy knew of Eris and so did the Principal Goodvibes after she had impersonated Billy's mother and then had giant alien zombie lobsters attack him and Billy's neighborhood.

Eris completely agreed with her about being in disguise as she didn't want the pageant to be affected either by her presence. And so for someone like her, physically changing her appearance to something different wasn't too difficult. She and Mindy had decided on the specifics of her physical appearance and then once the transformation was achieved, Eris had simply put on some old clothes she'd had back in high school and wore those to the pageant.

Convinced nothing could go wrong Mindy had happily attended the pageant that day ready to win over her pitiful competitors. Sure, she had some suspicions her mother had an ulterior motive, but she hadn't the slightest clue what it might have been. It was only later that the truth finally spilled out. Eris had wanted Mindy to shame Mandy into being a contestant at the pageant and not exactly because she felt Mindy could beat her at the competition. She had a hunch that if Mandy was part of the pageant that at some point she would be forced to smile to have even a slight chance at winning. But knowing Mandy's usual disposition, if forced to become something she wasn't, it had the possibility of being quite explosive and chaotic. That reality had ended up being torn apart in the aftermath following that smile had exceeded even Eris's wildest expectations.

Mindy just thanked her lucky stars that everyone had been too caught up in their own fear and terror to notice her mother's fake appearance vanish to be replaced by her true self laughing manically at what was happening around her. Then Mindy's head became a radish and the less said about the whole incident the better.

After reality had finally realigned itself, Mindy had been devastated by her mother's actions feeling both used and betrayed. As far as she was concerned, this was one rift that couldn't be healed. But that night, after shedding tears she'd never admit to, Eris had come up to her room and explained that yes she'd had a hidden agenda behind the beauty pageant and Mindy had every right to be mad at her, but that hadn't been her primary motivation for the whole thing.

For one, Eris had never been a parent, or even a semi-responsible individual before, and she was still doing her best to learn the ropes. She had made mistakes and would make more in the future, but that she truly would never do anything to intentionally hurt Mindy. She also truly felt that she and her daughter never did anything together and that aside from the small time they spent together at the house, Eris really knew nothing about her life. Indeed, given all the times she'd bother Mandy over the years, she knew more about Mindy's arch-enemy than her own daughter. And so she'd come up with this whole scheme knowing that it wouldn't have worked without one important factor, that the two of them had to come together to ensure Mandy's entry into the pageant and that she feel she had no choice but to smile in order to win. And that Mandy had become a PowerPuff girl, as Bubbles no less, was a source of amusement for both of them.

The explanation hadn't entirely made up for what had happened, but something about her mother's expression during the whole thing allowed Mindy to give her the benefit of the doubt. A quick hug and the incident was pretty much put behind them. Although they still had a long road ahead, the whole incident had been a major event in their relationship. One they were still figuring out step by step.

"So where's dad?" asked Mindy curious as she snapped herself out of her reverie and looked around the kitchen. On a nearby counter sat a copy of War and Peace which had bite marks on it.

"I honestly don't know," Eris admitted as she drank from her glass. "I sent him out to get groceries but that was three days ago, which means he probably got distracted by something supernatural," she continued nonchalantly, although a little bit miffed while absently spinning her wedding ring on her finger. "He'd better be back soon because we just ran out of milk and since there's no mayonnaise anymore I had to substitute eel saliva for it to make the tuna."

Hearing that caused Mindy to turn a little bit green after staring at her sandwich and knowing now why it tasted a little strange. Although thanks to living with her mother's cooking for so long, she'd learned to repress her gag reflex and so she finished her bite and then put the sandwich on her plate and pushed it away. Apparently she was done eating for the moment…

VRROOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!

A loud truck engine was heard roaring down the street and then it came right up their driveway as a squeal of braking tires was heard. The vehicle was heard to pause briefly as the garage door opened, and then roared into the garage before shutting off.

SLAM!

THUD!

The door from the garage to the kitchen suddenly slammed open and Mindy barely had enough time to yank her disgusting sandwich out of the way as a large motionless furry body slammed onto the table.

"Behold family, I have returned triumphant!" said a gravelly and uber-manly voice.

"What in Hades is this?!" demanded Eris irate at the white furred creature now on her kitchen table.

"A yeti," explained the eye-patch wearing, one handed heavily muscled man as if that were obvious. The new arrival was known as Hoss Delgado, the self-proclaimed greatest hunter in the world of all things supernatural. He was violent, probably crazy, a walking arsenal on two feet, and despite all these things was still…Mindy's father.

_This was second third of the greatest secret Mindy has always been terrified of the world finding out_.

"I sent you out to go buy groceries three days ago, not come back with this!" shouted Eris as flames slowly started to erupt in her eyes. Hoss shied back briefly from her fury, if he'd been told to get food he'd long since forgotten thanks to the thrill of the hunt, before turning thoughtful.

"Did you know that even a male yeti can lactate up to six gallons of milk an hour for eight hours following death?" he offered, trying to sound helpful.

"Not over my kitchen room table it's not!"

As her parents argued back and forth, it gave Mindy a chance to reflect on her egotistical father. Whereas her mother and her motivations were a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a conundrum, her father wore his heart on his sleeve although he was no less confusing to her.

Hoss Delgado's primary motivation in life was the hunting and extermination of all things supernatural. This meant he hunted the most dangerous and vile creatures the world largely denied existed. The problem was, he was apparently pretty good at it and with every successful hunt his ego often grew too large for his body to handle. As such, he tended to spout off non-sequiturs about many of the hunts he been on, hunts so outrageous in nature Mindy had doubts if they'd actually happened. But she had no reason to think his knowledge of the supernatural wasn't accurate since Eris never really saw fit to correct him during any of his outlandish statements.

All of this meant that when it came to understanding and raising a little girl Hoss was hopelessly out of his league, not that he didn't try in his own strange and unique way. Consequently, Mindy had knowledge of anything mythical, cryptid, extraterrestrial or supernatural. She was also an expert in any and all firearms and bladed weapons that existed in the world. She not only could identify, clean and field strip any gun or rifle, she could also tell what caliber bullet it took and even make the appropriate shells with the right equipment. In the living room of the house were several shooting range trophies that she'd won. Amongst assorted family photos, there was also a photo of her and her father at a parent/child paintball gun tournament which the two had entered. They'd largely swept the competition until a paintball grenade they'd designed and set off had gotten them disqualified and then ejected from the tournament. But they'd still had fun while it lasted…and apparently after they'd left, the trees had somehow come to life and chased everyone off the premises thus ensuring no winner.

"Well why don't we ask Wendy what she thinks," she overhead her father saying. Mindy groaned at hearing that.

"It's Mindy, dad!" she shouted exasperated. Her father could almost never get her name right no matter how many times she corrected him. At times it was endearing, at other times it was annoying like now. Her father's complete lack of social etiquette was the primary reason for Mindy's desire to make sure no one knew they were related. In school, status was anything and everything when it came to popularity. If word got out about how Hoss acted on a regular basis, Mindy would never be able to dig herself out of the resulting hole to her social status. Plus there was the fact that Principal Goodvibes knew her father very well and was terrified of him after being threatened by him multiple times. So if losing her social status wasn't enough, she'd probably be thrown out of school as well and if that happened then Eris would probably… Mindy didn't want to think about it.

Although she had to remind herself that if not for her father she wouldn't be living in such opulence. Despite not flaunting his wealth, her father's single-mindedness towards hunting anything and everything had resulted in him in creating a number of devices that he had patented and made a substantial amount of money off of that kept them afloat. Still, despite the money and her father's bizarre personality it wasn't always easy not having him around to look after her…

-Twitch-

Mindy's attention was immediately diverted as she thought she saw the Yeti move.

"Daddy, are you sure this thing is dead?" she had to ask.

"Of course it is, Cindy. You wouldn't know because you've never hunted your own great white beast. If I say it's dead then it's dead," he answered smugly.

"Oh, I've heard that before," Eris muttered shaking her head in shame. Hoss whirled to face her.

"You brought that lycanthrope back to life!" he accused. The two resumed arguing as Mindy concentrated on the Yeti. Something still seemed off but she couldn't figure out what it was. Her eyes slowly drifted down to her sandwich and then it occurred to her what was missing.

"If it's dead, why isn't giving off milk?" she asked next. That did give Hoss pause for a moment.

"Probably just shy," he figured. "I shot it with enough poison to bring it down for good."

"Oh, that reminds me, I halved the dosage of all your darts," Eris chimed in. Hoss whirled to face her.

"By Thor's Banjo woman, why?!" he demanded. Eris smiled sweetly at him.

"You said that your latest hunts weren't much of a challenge so I thought I'd spice them up a bit with a little chaos," she answered mischievously. Hoss looked like he wanted to yell at her some more when a broad grin spread across his face and he took Eris up in his arms.

"You _are_ a tricky pixie," he opined. Eris giggled despite herself.

"Nope, just a gorgeous sea hag," she corrected lovingly. Mindy rolled her eyes at their sweet talk and prepared to close her eyes to avoid seeing her parents kiss in the kitchen room. But before any of them could do anything else, the consequences of what Eris had done finally hit all three of them.

"Uh-oh," they all said in unison.

RAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWR!

Mindy screamed as the Yeti abruptly came to life and roared loudly while swinging his arms about. Not wasting a moment, Hoss dropped Eris who stumbled backwards against the kitchen sink as Hoss's metal hand returned to its place and his trusty chainsaw launching crossbow emerged.

"Lindy, get back!" shouted Hoss as he fired at the Yeti who deftly dodged the attacks which subsequently reduced the table to toothpicks. Mindy had pushed herself away and then watched the chainsaws fly past without a second glance.

"My kitchen room table!" shouted Eris irate as flames erupted all around her to match her mood. And then in a moment worthy of the Three Stooges, the Yeti ran around the room being chased by Hoss Delgado who was firing at it who was in turn being chased by Eris who was throwing fireballs at him. In the midst of all of this, Mindy was still sitting on her chair calmly and she watched the chase for a few moments before looking at her sandwich on her lap. After a moment's debate, she picked it back up and began chewing on it thoughtfully.

_Hoss Delgado and Eris both being her parents was the third part of the greatest secret Mindy ever had._

Her parents could put the odd couple to shame they were so completely opposite to one another. Her father hunted the very mystical creature category her mother belonged to. Her mother wreaked havoc on anyone and everyone for little to no reason whatsoever and punished anyone who got on her bad side…and had once done so to her father. The two were like fire and ice or oil and water.

And yet somehow the two had found each other…and were still together ever since. Their personalities conflicted early and often and they constantly argued with each other…yet Mindy somehow got the impression that with their egos involved, both enjoyed it. And on occasion the two would…'spar' with each other. Eris would turn into some sort of cryptid monster and go on a rampage and Hoss would then go after her with rubber bullets and tranquilizer darts. Mindy had originally found this to be both strange and disturbing but both her parents insisted that it was not them engaging in domestic abuse, something neither approved of in any situation, but rather like sparring on a gym mat. Back when the two of them dated, it had been one of the things to put some spice into their relationship such as when her mother once turned into a 30 story beetle and swallowed her father whole. The two had laughed about it afterwards when she finally spat him back out when he used his tools to give her a stomach ache.

Mindy knew she would never understand her parentage. But conversely, her parents felt the same about her. Neither one of them had the slightest idea where she'd come from. They hadn't even met until long after Mindy was allegedly born and had already known Billy and Mandy before they did. They two did have some hazy recollections of trashing Las Vegas during one wild night and during the rush of chaos and destruction, the two had found themselves in front of a priest at a 24-hour wedding chapel and taken their vows and all the legal paperwork had cleared and made it legally official. Their wedding photos consisted of newspaper clippings and online photos showing the destruction they'd caused. Mindy didn't find the story to be all that romantic but her parents didn't seem to mind.

Something kept bringing them back to each other. Even despite the long hunts where Hoss would be gone for days on end, he still returned home to show off what he had done. Eris meanwhile still delighted in chaos but she never felt hindered in that regard by now having a family to watch over. As far as they were concerned, that something that couldn't drive them apart was one of the strongest powers in the known universe: love.

The other confusing factor for Mindy about her life was that neither Hoss Delgado nor Eris knew where human babies came from. In her mother's case, she had some excuse considering she wasn't even human to begin with. But despite millennia of wreaking havoc in people's lives, bothering to find out how more of them were made had never occurred to her. But then she had no idea how her species procreated either… She was definitely an airhead at times in Mindy's opinion. In her father's case he had less of a reason to not know. As part of his hunts he knew the mating and reproductive habits of thousands of animals but how humans did either somehow eluded him. He was a man child through and through as Mindy saw it.

As a consequence to this, Mindy had found herself in the overly embarrassing and unique situation of explaining the birds and the bees to her _parents_. The reason she knew in the first place was because her parents were prone to wild flights of fancy when it came to the truth and so Mindy often had to figure things out for herself…often ahead of time. Despite having lived through most of the history covered in her textbooks, Eris either had no knowledge of the events being described or had her own unique view on the things she did remember. One time Mindy had barely managed to stop her from going to school and having it out with her teacher, Ms. Butterbean, about not receiving credit for the events she'd claimed to have caused.

Hoss Delgado meanwhile was pretty good when it came to helping Mindy with her anatomy and physiology class, although he often tended to disagree with the textbook's descriptions at times. Every animal in there he claimed he'd hunted some mutant freak version of and wondered why the textbook made no mention of them. He also wondered why all the mythical creatures he'd hunted, the book claimed didn't exist either despite him having the trophies to prove them. Hoss also said his arm device made the whole book's section on the human anatomy wildly off-base. Mindy had never bothered to ask why not wanting to find out. Then he offered to craft a similar device for her which she'd immediately refused.

And so, thanks to her encyclopedic knowledge and secret love of books, once Mindy explained the whole reproductive process her parents had been shocked, awed, disgusted, and intrigued. And then Mindy was pretty damn sure the two of them put what they had learned into practice as often as they could...

Due to their lack of knowledge, Mindy had grilled the two of them on her origins. Her memories of the past were hazy, but she had some vague notion that the two of them had always been her parents. Her parents didn't exactly recall raising her either, just that they had somehow settled into this life and she had somehow always been a part of it. Hoss had originally assumed she was some sort of shape shifting assassin sent by the Council of Elves. But the elves had bigger fish to fry now that they were in a war with the gnomes and were funneling all their money into that effort.

Eris had originally had one of two theories for Mindy's existence. The first was that she was a form of punishment from 'daddy' for marrying a mortal. The second was that she was a 'gift' from the Apple of Discord for marrying a mortal. When Hoss and Eris had been dating, normalcy had set into her life and as such chaos around her had become almost non-existent. While those around her had been overjoyed, for Eris-and to almost the same extent, Hoss-it had been hell. But despite knowing what had happened the last time, the two had then gone beyond dating and gotten married. There had to be consequences for that. And there was nothing in life that was more chaotic than raising a child.

But over time, Eris and Hoss had abandoned their theories of where Mindy had come from. They accepted that she was part of their life now and they didn't really remember a time when she hadn't been.

Mindy for her part needed more convincing. With explanations and bizarre theories like that, she initially assumed they had either adopted her or brainwashed her. But one day at school a scientist had come in for show and tell and explained genetics and that had given her the idea to get a paternity test done to know for sure. She'd saved up her allowance money for a month and after collecting some DNA samples from her parents had mailed it off to be tested. After waiting for weeks on end, it finally returned to her. Tearing open the package, she had read the DNA analyses of her parents. The report on Eris mentioned that her DNA wasn't even human and had caused all the machines analyzing it to go haywire. Hoss's DNA yielded a similar story as the analyzers had a hard time believing that anything filled with as much hormone, testosterone, adrenalin, and more as this one did could possibly belong to a human being.

And then Mindy had come to the page with the results of whether or not she was the biological child of Hoss Delgado and Eris. Her hands trembled as she looked at the sealed envelope as her mind was bombarded with countless thoughts of the two had raised her. They were crude, crass, uncivilized, vengeful, single-minded, chaotic, and yet despite everything…

Hoss Delgado was slammed to the floor in front of her as he struggled to stop the Yeti from choking him. Looking over at his wife, Eris was now completely covered in ethereal flames and looked like a roman candle about to explode. And then his eyes drifted on Mindy who had just finished her sandwich and was looking at him intently.

"Mindy," he began, intentionally using her first name which got her full attention. "If you can get the electro-net, why don't we see about letting you catch your first Yeti."

Upon hearing that, the flames surrounding Eris immediately vanished to nothing as a warm motherly smile crossed her face.

…_Heaven help her, she loved them both._

Despite everything, Mindy sighed, happily. "Yes, daddy," she said as she hopped off her chair to get the appropriate device from its holder.

"I'll go get the camera!" said Eris happily as she rushed from the room.

In the end, Mindy never bothered to read the results and had destroyed them because they didn't matter, they never had. As the saying went, "you get to choose who your friends are but you don't get to choose who your family is." They were together now and forever and that was all that mattered.

And she remained completely unaware of just how much they had imprinted on her. The fighting skills she learned from her father had allowed her to survive and thrive amongst the craziness that was Endsville and school. And her calculating vengeful side owed much to watching and observing her mother in action and it gave her an edge when it came to all things in her social life. Together they made her a lethal combination of both brains and brawn.

_Some might say that capturing a Yeti with your crazed hunter of a father in your home kitchen while being photographed by your chaos inducing mother was the definition of insanity. But to Mindy, it was home…and it always would be._


End file.
